The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2052 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Episode 171 doz for the dodecaphiles.

I began to distribute the news around the family. I also needed to find out what happened to Gloria’s parents, or even grandparents and let them know. Most of all however, was a need to talk with Neal, knowing full well he’d be unable to help very much at the present. I could arrange a funeral for Gloria and allow him to fine tune it, but that could be complicated, and I didn’t want to be seen to be taking over yet another aspect of his life.

I was musing on this when Trish called me to her computer. “Seen this, Mummy?”

I looked at the screen and on the local paper website was the following short piece:
‘Hospital staff questioned over suicide of woman patient. The thirty year old woman was found hanging in one of the stairwells by a bandage she must have taken from a store room or nurse’s trolley. The hospital has announced an enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death. Police are not seeking anyone else in connection with this event. The unfortunate woman’s family have been informed. Post natal depression hasn’t yet been ruled out as the cause of the incident.’

I called Phoebe and she read the notice and gasped. “She killed herself? Omigod.”

“It doesn’t actually say it was her, but it seems unlikely to be anyone else. No wonder Neal’s under sedation.”

“That's why the police were asking about your conversation with her,” Phoebe suggested.

“It would certainly make sense, yes, you’re probably right.” I glanced across at Trish, “How did you happen to see that?”

“Oh I check their site quite regularly, gives me a chance to see if any of the nuns have been arrested as paedophiles.”

“Trish, that isn’t funny.”

“No, especially if they’ve taught you.”

“That’s happened has it?”

“Yeah, Sister Constance was caught with a girl in the toilets.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it was only last week.”

“They’ve kept that very quiet,” I mused out loud.

“They’d hardly put it in their prospectus or syllabus would they?” said Phoebe sounding very cynical.

“Okay, I’ll speak with Sister Maria next time I see her.” I hoped that would be some distance away and we could all forget it. I had enough to think about for the moment.

“Check the baby, would you Phoebe?”

“Check her for what?”

“See if she’s still breathing–doh,” muttered Trish and Phoebe gave her a hard stare, which is somewhat wasted if you’re looking at a computer screen and don’t see it, as Trish was. Phoebe went up to check the baby.

“Don’t be so sarcastic, Trish, Phoebe hasn’t had much experience with babies compared to you.”

“Yeah, all of it bad,” she sighed and I knew she was taking the rise out of me.

“Well, you could go and play with your dolls a bit more often and you might know a bit more yourself.”

She rolled her eyes, “Don’t do dolls, Mummy, except to find their total destruction point–that’s quite interesting, soaking them in nitro and setting fire–do they go bang or what?”

“Trish that is gross.”

She giggled–had I created a psychopath? Or what they tend to describe as a person with severe or pronounced sociopathic traits or tendencies or similar personality disorders. Apparently, psychopath was a legal term not a clinical one, now it’s only used in tabloid papers to describe anyone who’s been accused of something nasty. Basically, it suggests someone who isn’t driven by remorse when they’ve done something awful, they just ignore the fact and disconnect their consciences whereas the rest of us would be feeling huge amounts of remorse, especially if we had deliberately hurt someone.

David made a dinner which I don’t think any of the adults really wanted to eat, we were still dealing with shock and possibly grief. Certainly that applied to Tom who had known Glo for a lot longer than I had. Apparently, she and Neal had been appointed about the same time which was the year before I arrived on the scene as a person of questionable gender, presenting as male but with difficulty–the difficulty being in the mind of the perceiver–who usually concluded my name was Charlotte not Charles.

After an hour of pushing food around my plate I announced that Phoebe and I were going to the hospital to see Neal. I left the others to clear up and asked Stella to keep an eye on the baby, whom I’d just fed at the table–well, it was her dinner time, too.

I changed into something a bit tidier, though quite why I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if Neal would be the slightest impressed by me, nor would anyone else, but perhaps it gave me confidence. Recent research apparently suggests that women dress up for their women friends or rivals not for their boyfriends. What happens with gay women, I haven’t a clue–perhaps they do the same or not.

I wore some black trousers with a pink top and my black velvet jacket, Phoebe had a short dress with leggings on underneath, Ugg boots and a tiny cardigan completed her outfit. I wasn’t sure if I liked that style.

We didn’t speak during the drive over, each perhaps reflecting upon what we’d say to Neal, assuming he was conscious. I parked the car and we walked quickly to the main hospital and then took the lift up to the required floor.

He’d been moved to a single room and he was lying in bed, awake, but distracted by his grief, or so I assumed. Tears were washing down his cheeks and every now and again he made like a whimpering noise. It was distressing to see.

“Neal,” I said loudly and he jumped a little before looking at me and then going back to his weeping. “Neal, we need to talk to you.”

“Go away, I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Neal, you have a daughter, remember? We need your cooperation to look after her until you’re able to take care of her.”

“Oh keep her, I don’t want her–I just want my Gloria–my beautiful Glo.”

“We’re sorry to hear what happened to her, but your daughter needs your help too.”

“I don’t want a daughter, I want a wife–a wife d’ya hear?”

“Neal, please try to think beyond now, when you’ll have recovered from this shock and look to start living normally again.”

“Live normal–hah. I should be dead now if you hadn’t interfered–you’re always interfering, aren’t you, can’t leave anything alone–can you? Take the bloody baby, that’s all you wanted anyway–go on take the bloody child–see if I care–bloody baby snatcher.”

I didn’t see Phoebe walk closer to him, but I heard the slap she gave him. “You disgusting pig, how can you talk like that about the only person who’s consistently tried to help you? Apologise to her now or I’ll never speak to you again.”

I was about to intervene when she raised her hand up to motion me to be quiet.
She continued to glare at Neal who tried to avoid eye contact. “Well?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, Cathy, I didn’t mean it. Everything’s got on top of me for the last few weeks and this is so awful, I can’t get my head round it–I still feel she’s gonna come through that door and tell me to get off my arse and do something. But she isn’t, is she?”

“No, Neal, I’m sorry.”

“What am I going to do, Cathy? She was my life.”

“You have another young woman to build your life around and she needs you more than Gloria did.”

“I don’t think I could cope, you’d better keep her.”

“Neal, I have enough children of my own, I don’t need yours as well, generous though the offer was, she needs you, her dad to rear her. We’ll help but she needs you.”

“I don’t know, Cathy, that’s a pretty big agenda.”

“You won’t be on your own, we’ll be there to help.”

“And Mummy’s got experience of looking after babies, so you’ll be alright.”

“Yeah, sure. I feel tired now.” With that he closed hls eyes and went off to sleep. We waited for another ten or fifteen minutes and then left. Not the best evening I’d ever experienced.